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Joe Paterno's son sent an email to former football players hours before the release of a bombshell report. It's an investigation into the PSU child sex abuse scandal and how allegations against Jerry Sandusky were handled. (Published Wednesday, Jul 11, 2012)

Updated at 12:03 AM EDT on Thursday, Jul 12, 2012

On the eve of the day a new investigative report on the Penn State child sex abuse scandal will be released, NBC10 obtained an email sent by Jay Paterno, defending his father.

The team brought in by Penn State to investigate how the university handled molestation accusations against former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky will release its highly anticipated report Thursday, with the school's reputation and future direction hanging in the balance.

The university trustees who paid for the probe, led by former FBI director and federal judge Louis Freeh, will pore through it Thursday to see what it says about university employees, recommendations for policy changes and even their own knowledge about rumors Sandusky had abused children on campus.

A column that Joe Paterno supposedly wrote before he died was sent to former Penn State football players on Wednesday. A family friend tells NBC10 Joe’s son, Jay Paterno, was the one who sent the op-ed to the select group of players in order to defend his father. NBC10 obtained that email.

This is the op-ed Joe Paterno had written in late December and early January. We felt it was time to share it with you. Feel free to share it with other football alumni.

If the Freeh report attacks the "culture of football" it is an assault on all the things that the coaches and football Student-Athletes at Penn State stood for. You came here and did things the right way, took the hard road because education, discipline, integrity and honor mattered to you. We certainly were not perfect but we aspired and strove to reach the ideals ingrained in the true culture of our program. No one and no words to the contrary can take that away.

I hope you read this with the understanding of what Joe Paterno expressed to me, he didn't care what they said about him, even if what they said wasn't true. What drove him was that they were trying to take away what so many people had done right--in football and at our University.

Sources tell NBC10 Thursday's report will cast blame on Joe Paterno and University administrators. They also say the report accuses them of creating a culture that allowed Sandusky to molest young boys, even after Mike McQueary told school officials he witnessed Sandusky abusing a young boy in 2001.

NBC10 sources also say the report may effectively bolster the case against former Penn State athletic director Tim Curley and former vice president Gary Schultz who are now charged with not reporting a crime. The report is also expected to reveal damaging emails from former Penn State President Graham Spanier.

The board of trustees will meet at the Scranton Radison Hotel on Thursday. Board member Ken Frazier tells NBC10 they'll see the report when the public sees it at 9 a.m.